EXPOSURE TO NATURE PROVIDES A MYRIAD OF HEALTH BENEFITS

Psychological

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Stress Reduction

Studies suggest that nature or even living in close proximity to greenspaces and forested areas can dramatically reduce levels of low-grade to major life stress.

There are two types of stress that a large part of the population experiences in their daily lives:Major life stresses (major loss, divorce, financial loss, life altering accidents) and low grade stress (daily life hassles, arguments with strangers, flat tire, etc). With both types, feelings of annoyance, agitation, anxiety, frustration, worry, irritation, depression arises.

Adults who report stressful lives, have higher levels of cortisol in their brains than people who don’t undergo daily stressful events.Cortisol actually has short term benefits during a crises such as immediate immune support but the longterm effects of elevated levels are detrimental.Chronic cortisol elevations are linked to a cycle of low-grade inflammation and oxidative stress which are cell damaging.Virtually every chronic medical condition has been associated with the coupling of chronic inflammation and oxidative stress.

There are numerous theories as to why nature is able to relieve the feelings and effects of stress. One is the soundscape. By just being in the presence of a quiet natural area such as a park forest, the stress inducing human made noises called “anthrophone”, are diminished and in some places entirely eliminated, thus reducing levels of stress and the release of cortisol.The negative effects that loud noises in our modern age have on our mental and physical health should not be underestimated.

If you find yourself in a place that has noises constantly grabbing your attention or begin to notice noises that you’ve been trying to ignore, it’s time to take action and seek out a quiet respite in nature.

The Studies:

University of Michigan and Edge Hill University in England: Scientists monitored more than 1,900 participants in England’s Walking for Health program, which hosts about 3,000 walks every week. They found that nature walks were associated with significantly less depression and that they reduced the negative effects of stress.

Sara Warber, lead author who is associate professor of family medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School concludes that those who walked at least once a week after the 13 week trial, experienced positive emotions and less stress.

• A 2010 study published in Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine found that participants who walked in a forest had lower blood pressure and levels of cortisol (a.k.a. the stress hormone) afterwards than those who strolled through a city environment.

The capacity of the brain to focus on a specific task or stimulus is finite and results in ‘directed attention fatigue’ and has far reaching consequences.Exposure to natural environments encourages more effortless brain function and involuntary attention, thereby allowing it to recover and replenish its directed attention capacity.

According to Psychologist Dr. Stephen Kaplan who posited the Attention Restoration Theory (ART), the natural environment must have four properties in order to provide this restorative effect:

1. Extent (the scope to feel immersed in the environment)

2. Being away (an escape from habitual activities)

3. Soft fascination (aspects of the environment that capture attention effortlessly, i.e. swaying of trees in the wind)

4. Compatibility (individuals must want to be exposed to the environment and be appreciative)

When you find yourself focusing on a task that isn’t compelling or particularly interesting, like say tax preparation, you may feel mentally fatigued.Try exposing yourself to nature that has the 4 properties above and you’ll find your mind replenished and ready to have another go at tallying those receipts.

The Studies:

Research has shown that nature has greater restorative benefits than urban environments and this has been applied to diverse settings. For example; two researchers Ottosson and Grahn (2005) found people in an aged care facility who were exposed to nature for one hour a week had improved attention compared to the elderly people that remained indoors

• In a completely different context, Kuo and Sullivan (2001) found young adult residents who had a view of nature had higher scores on attentional capacity, compared to people who lived in the inner city.

Nature has the ability to improve our mood and provide “positive distractions” from everyday woes.Through being softly fascinated with the awe of Nature, our minds can relax and restore.

A common trait in the bad mood category and feelings of depression is brooding or otherwise called rumination.Rumination is what happens when you can’t stop thinking about your sadness and what might be causing it.An experience in Nature can provide a break in this depressive cycle.

The next time you’re feeling blue, get into the green outdoors.If your bad mood brain is saying it won’t help you feel better, know that people are inherently terrible at “Affective Forecasting”- predicting how we will feel in the near future.

The Studies:

This study by Gregory N.Bratman and his colleagues investigated the impact of nature experience on affect and cognition. Researches randomly assigned sixty participants to a 50-min walk in either a natural or an urban environment in and around Stanford, California. Before and after their walk, participants completed a series of psychological assessments of affective and cognitive functioning. Compared to the urban walk, the nature walk resulted in affective benefits (decreased anxiety, rumination, and negative affect, and preservation of positive affect) as well as cognitive benefits (increased working memory performance).

A recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Essex and published by the mental health organization Mind found that taking a walk in nature reduced depression scores in 71 percent of participants. Researchers compared the effect with a control group who also took a walk, but in a shopping centre. Only 45 percent of the shopping center walkers had reduced depression scores, while 22 percent of them actually felt more depressed.

Stanford scientists examined whether a nature walk could reduce rumination in 38 mentally healthy people. They picked city dwellers for their elevated levels of rumination.After some preliminary tests, half the participants walked for 90 minutes through a grassland dotted with oak trees and shrubs (“views include neighboring, scenic hills, and distant views of the San Francisco Bay”). The other half took a jaunt along El Camino Real, a four-lane, traffic-logged street in Palo Alto. The nature walkers showed decreases in rumination and in activity in their subgenual prefrontal cortices. The urban walkers showed no such improvements.Their results are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study At the University of Michigan, published in the journal Ecopsychology, included 1,991 people who were part of England’s Walking For Health program, which hosts over 3,000 walks each week. Researchers compared people who participated, and did not participate, in group walks in nature. Researches found that taking group nature walks is associated with a slew mental health benefits, including improved well-being and mental health, decreased depression, and lower perceived stress. The positive effects on mood seemed to be especially strong among people who had recently experienced a traumatic life event, like a serious illness, death of a loved one or divorce.

Nature has a restorative effect that impacts our mental capacity to concentrate.From walking in the woods to viewing nature through a window, this phenomena has been shown to occur.

There are tremendous distractions in our modern lives where constant stimuli is working our minds and zapping our brain’s ability to concentrate on tasks.Symptoms can be so acute for people and children that the clinical diagnoses of ADHD and ADD are being applied at an alarming rate.

Nature can help us restore our minds, even for people with such diagnosis.When people experience Nature through means of such as walking in the forest, gardening, viewing slides of nature, stewarding the land, and simply having a view of trees and grass outside one’s home or office—concentration has been shown to improve.

When you’re having a hard time concentrating take micro-breaks and look out of the window at nature for at least 40 seconds before going back to your task.

The Studies:

A University of Melbourne study conducted by Dr Kate Lee published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology shows that looking at a grassy green roof for only 40 seconds significantly boosts concentration.

150 students were giving a boring, attention draining task. The students were asked to press a key as a series of numbers repeatedly flashed on a computer screen, unless that number was three.They were then given a 40-second break halfway through the task to view two city rooftop scenes from a window: A flowering meadow green roof and a bare concrete roof.

The study found that the group who looked at the greener nature vista made significantly less mistakes and exhibited far better concentration on the second half of the task, compared to those who viewed the concrete roof.

Researches concluded that visual exposure to the green roof provided a restorative benefit that boosted those mental resources that control attention

The director of the Landscape and Human Health Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Frances Kuo began interviewing female residents in the Robert Taylor Homes, a massive housing project on the South Side of Chicago in the late 1990’s. Kuo and her colleagues compared women who were randomly assigned to various apartments. Some had a view of nothing but concrete such as basketball courts and the blacktop of parking lots, etc. The others looked out on grassy courtyards filled with trees and garden flowerbeds. Kuo then measured the two groups on a variety of tasks, from basic tests of attention to surveys that looked at how the women were handling major life challenges. What she and her colleagues found was living in an apartment with a view of greenery led to significant improvements in every category.Kuo explains that simply looking at a tree “refreshes the ability to concentrate.”

The Landscape and Human Health Lab’s conducted a study testing children with AD/HD in a controlled setting after they had walked in one of three environments that differed from one another in the level of greenery: a park, a neighborhood, and a quiet downtown area. The findings confirmed that the attention of children with AD/HD functions better after spending time in more natural settings.The research findings suggest that adding trees and greenery where children spend a lot of time, such as near homes and schools, and encouraging kids with AD/HD to play in greenspaces may help supplement established treatments to improve children’s functioning.

Studies are showing that exposure and immersion in nature and green spaces as opposed to urban environments have positive effects on how well we can retain short term information. This may have something to do with the Attention Restoration Theory (ART).

Psychologist Dr. Stephen Kaplan posited that Nature holds our involuntary focus and has an intrinsic fascination and doesn’t require the mental energy expenditure that typically leads to mental fatigue. When our brains are engaged in voluntary attention, as they are required to be when handling an overstimulation of information and constant choice making in the modern world, our energy sinks and short term memory performance falters.

Advertising and entertainment around us is ingenious in presenting information and stimulation that purports itself to be highly relevant and interesting thus demanding our attention to what ends up being mental “fluff”. After being in a calm restorative nature environment that holds an intrinsic fascination of innately important and interesting stimuli or looking at images of nature allows our brain to relax and calmly retrieve and retain information more accurately.

When you feel that you’re having a hard time remembering events or information that were just presented to you, take a break. Walk in a green space and simply look at nature and return to your tasks or look out the window at the trees or sky. If you don’t have access to these things, look at printed photographs or posters of nature.

The Studies:

At the University of Michigan, students were given a brief memory test, then divided into two groups.One group took a walk around an arboretum, and the other half took a walk down a city street. When the participants returned and did the test again, those who had walked among trees did almost20% percent better than the first time. The ones who had taken in city sights instead did not consistently improve.

In a 2005 study researches induced mental fatigue in the subjects by subjecting them to mentally demanding tasks demanding voluntary attention. They then presented restorative images of nature (waterfalls, forests, etc) to half of the group for five minutes while presenting images of urban environments (traffic, buildings, factories) to the other group. After the exposure to images, they went back into the demanding tasks with different experiences. The group that was exposed to nature imagery reported better memory recall as opposed to the group who viewed urban slides.

In A 2008 Study published in Psychological Science, researchers induced voluntary attention thus mental fatigue by having participants “play” challenging and draining brain games for a 35 minute period. Afterwards, the group who viewed nature photographs and went back to the game tests. Researchers confirmed that the participants performed higher scores of executive attention, which involves the management of short-term memory.

Along with traditional intervention treatments, Ecotherapy and other nature based therapy modalities such as Nature and Forest Therapy or Forest Bathing has entered the fray as a way to help lesson the severity of this disorder.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can develop after experiencing life-threatening events such as a natural disaster, combat, a car accident, or sexual assault.People who suffer from PTSD often have feelings of hopelessness, shame, despair, depression and anxiety that shape the course of their lives.Traditional treatments have been considered by some professionals as nominally effective which has lead to patients seeking alternative approaches such as the nature experience.

The promising new field and nature based treatment modalities have been seen as effective and transformative but scientific research has some catching up to do as to how exactly nature works in conjunction with this disorder.What we do have to go on is the current and growing body of research that shows nature’s restorative and positive effects on our mental and physical health such as the reduction of stress, elevated moods and increased cognitive functioning.

Try practicing Nature Mindfulness to help ease the stress from PTSD.

The Research:

A multi-year UC Berkeley research headed by psychology doctorate, Craig Anderson has been taking adolescents and veterans with PTSD on rafting trips to treat their symptoms.For both groups, facilitators saw a decrease in self-reported PTSD and also stress levels, and people reported that they slept better as well.Not only were the trips awe inspiring and positive, their effects lasted beyond the trip as well.Just one week after their rafting trips veterans reported a 30 percent decrease in PTSD symptoms.

Physiological

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Boosted Immune System

Having a strong immune system is vital to a healthy life. We have evolved an incredible defense system to help keep everything from the common cold to cancer at bay and when our defenses are down, our health is at risk.Interacting with nature can be instrumental in keeping our immunity strong and our lives invigorated.

There are several factors that play a role in having a strong immune system, all of which nature can help support.Factors such as having enough sleep, exercise, a good diet, no to little stress and feeling part of a caring community.

Aside from the evening silence that nature innately provides for a restful night, there is a growing body of research which also suggests that spending time in nature may improve sleep by resetting our internal clocks to a natural sleep cycle.Aligning with the naturalsunlight of the day has a direct impact on our melatonin levels which is an essential hormone that is pivotal to good sleep.A ground breaking study also suggests that two hours of forest walking or Forest Bathing increased duration of sleep and self-reported sleep quality amongst participants.It is hard to deny that having enough good quality sleep with nature’s help supports our immune functions.

Exercise is key to having a good immune system; nature supports and encourages being active in an expansive and softly fascinating environment.It may not just be exercise, but ‘green exercise’ that most benefits our health.There is a recent and fascinating study that shows that the color green, as a primitive feature of visual sensation, has a contributory effect toward positive green exercise outcomes such as having less tension and improved mood.

There are still relatively few studies of the effects of nutrition on the immune system and even fewer studies that tie the effects of nutrition directly to the development of diseases but one can use common sense:Eating good food from nature makes for a healthy body.To state the obvious and in the most general of terms, food comes from nature and the more we consume food that is closer to the source without the use of man made chemicals and the fresher the food is, the better our health and immune systems can be.

Being in nature and exposured to nature imagery has been shown to reduce our stress levels in quantifiable ways.Measurements of stress hormones, respiration, heart rate, and sweating suggest that short doses of nature or even pictures of the natural world can calm people down.We all have experienced the state of calm that washes over us in a forest or on a beach.Your immune system thanks you.

Being part of a caring community increases our social support and studies show may contribute to our health and longevity. It’s not clear why yet, butone theory holds that people who enjoy close relationships with family and friends receive emotional support that indirectly helps to sustain their immunity at times of chronic stress and crisis.Being part of a community of humans is wonderful, but let’s not forget the sense of belonging to nature as a whole.While we strengthen our connection and relationships to nature and to the communities of wildlife and plants, we may also be building a life enhancing social net that can contribute to our good health.More research is needed to support this latter theory.

For your health and wellbeing, spend time thinking about, looking at and being in nature. Your immune system will thank you.

The Studies:

Fourteen healthy male participants with normal color vision were recruited for this study where participants exercised on a stationary bike while looking at a simulated natural environment.they were required to watch a video of 1.a “green outdoor environment” cycling course with greenery, 2. the same footage presented achromatically as blank and white, and 3. The same footage using a red filter. Participants were required to rest between video trials until their cardiorespiratory measures had returned to post warm-up levels. Heart rate, oxygen uptake, respiratory exchange ratio, and ratings of perceived exertion were recorded during the last 30 s of each 5-min cycling trial.This was the first study to show that the color green, as a primitive feature of visual sensation, has a contributory effect toward positive green exercise outcomes.

In a study in Japan by Q Li and colleagues, 12 healthy men between the ages of 37 and 55 took a three-day, two-night trip to the forest. On the first day, the men spent two hours in the afternoon walking in the forest. On the second day, they walked in the forest for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. Blood samples tested on days two and three showed that in 11 of the 12 men there was a 50 percent increase in natural killer cells. NK cells play a major role in the host-rejection of both tumours and virally infected cells.Further studies have shown that these positive immune benefits can last up to a month after a visit to the woods.

There is a strong correlation between spending time in Nature and feelings of increased energy and vitality.Fresh air, natural light, soothing sounds and many other factors unique to the outdoors combine to create this amazing effect.

Research shows that people with feelings of increased energy levels have a greater resiliency to physical illnesses.Nature may be the path to achieving such states of health and wellness.What is compelling is that even thoughts of Nature can have a positive effect on our bodies.By spending more time and thinking about Nature there develops a deeper connection with the natural world. And with a greater sense of nature connectedness, it has been shown that pro-environmental behavior, feelings of life satisfaction, vitality and happiness are elevated.

Instead of reaching for that afternoon cup of coffee, consider taking a stroll outdoors.Also, just closing your eyes and thinking about fond feelings of Nature could help energize the soul.

The Studies:

The University of Rochester conducted five separate experiments, involving 537 college students in actual and imagined contexts. Experiment 1:Participants were led on a 15-minute walk through indoor hallways or along a tree-lined river path. Experiement 2:Participants viewed photographic scenes of buildings or landscapes. Experiement 3:Students were told to imagine themselves in a variety of situations both active and sedentary, inside and out, and with and without others.Two final experiments tracked participants’ moods and energy levels throughout the day using diary entries. Over either four days or two weeks, students documented their exercise, time spent outside, social interactions, and exposure to natural environments, including plants and windows.Across all 5 methodologies, individuals consistently felt more energetic when they spent time in natural settings or imagined themselves in such situations.

The Wildlife Trusts developed a mass engagement campaign, 30 Days Wild. The campaign asked people to engage with nature every day for a month. 12,400 people signed up for 30 Days Wild via an online sign-up with an estimated 18,500 taking part overall, resulting in an estimated 300,000 engagements with nature by participants. What they found was that Nature connectedness is associated with pro-environmental behavior and aspects of human well-being, such as life satisfaction, vitality and happiness.

Good sleep is essential to our health and well-being.Natural sunlight during the daylight hours and the lulling quietude ofnature at night make for a perfect recipe of a good night’s sleep.

As a species, the majority of our evolution has been in tandem with the natural cycles of the earth and its relation to the sun.What has evolved in humans and in most living organisms to this day is a circadian rhythm or otherwise known as a biological clock.

Melatonin is a hormone that is released in preparation for sleep and is triggered by the absence of light. When the sun goes down, the body says time to sleep.But with the advent of artificial light and more recently, computer and device screens, our circadian rhythms are out of whack.What’s interesting is people fall back into their natural circadian rhythms if they spend time in conjunction with the natural light in less than a week.

Research is ongoing about how being in nature effects the quality of sleep.Being in the sun seems to help our biological clocks and levels of vitamin D which Oxford University research indicates may be essential for maintaining a healthy sleep.Along with proper food intake or supplements, the sun on our skin is the only way for us to absorb the essential nutrition.

Being outdoors also lends itself to being physically active.As little as 10 minutes of exercise a day can dramatically improve the quality of sleep.That includes a walk in the woods of course.

If you’re not sleeping well or enough, intentionally expose yourself to the daylight by taking a walk outdoors, preferably in a greenspace.If that doesn’t do the trick, go big and camp out for 3 nights and you’ll most likely sleep like a baby.

The Studies:

Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan funded a research with 71 healthy volunteers (43 men and 28 women). Two-hour forest-walking sessions were conducted on 8 different weekend days from September through December 2005. Sleep conditions were compared between the nights before and after walking in a forest by self-administered questionnaire and actigraphy data.It was found that forest walking improved nocturnal sleep conditions for individuals with sleep complaints, possibly as a result of exercise and emotional improvement.

‘Researchers studied the sleep patterns of 6 men and 2 women, with an average age of 30. They observed and measured their subjects’ daytime and nighttime activity during a normal week. Participants wore wrist monitors that recorded their sleep and their waking activity, as well as their exposure to light and the timing of light exposure. The study subjects then spent another week camping in Colorado’s Eagles’ Nest Wilderness. During their week of camping, they were exposed only to natural light—sunlight during the day, and moonlight and campfire light at night. During this week, participants had no exposure to artificial light, including flashlights. Researchers took the same series of measurements of their daytime activity, nighttime sleep, and timing and amount of exposure to light. In addition, at the end of each of the two weeks, researchers measured melatonin levels.’ What they found was that participants circadian clocks began to align and differences in sleep patterns the participants had before the study virtually vanished.

Researches systematically reviewed the medical literature and performed a meta-analysis of twenty trials involving 732 participants.Four electronic databases were systematically searched for the period before May 2016 with language restriction of English and Japanese. The review considered all published, randomized, controlled trials, cohort studies, and comparative studies that evaluated the effects of the forest environment on changes in systolic blood pressure.Systolic blood pressure of the forest environment was significantly lower than that of the non-forest environment. Additionally, diastolic blood pressure of the forest environment was significantly lower than that of the non-forest environment.

There is a growing body of research that shows a lowering of blood pressure after a walk in a natural area such as forest. Parsing out all variables is a challenge for scientists but the results are compelling nonetheless and lean into the idea of Nature as a powerful elixir.

So what is it about Nature that is attributed to changing our metabolic state?Researchers in Japan speculated that its the phytoncides that we breath in from coniferous trees.Phytoncides are the hormone chemicals emitted from trees to ward off infectious diseases, acting much like a natural disinfectant.When we breath in the aroma, our body reacts in curious ways.Aside from increased activity in the parasympathetic (responsible for stimulation of “rest-and-digest” or “feed and breed” activities during restful states) activity and a reduction in sympathetic (which activates the fight or flight response) activity in humans, blood pressure has been shown to drop.

If you have high blood pressure, consider incorporating walks in Nature, practicing Forest Bathing and Nature Mindfulness Walks as part of your treatment.See if your doctor agrees.

The Studies:

Researchers at the Nippon Medical School in Tokyo took 16 healthy male subjects on two day trips a week apart. In one, they walked for two hours in a forest; in the other, they walked for two hours in “an urban area of Tokyo.” At 8 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. on each of the days, the researchers took a barrage of measurements, including blood and urine samples. The results clearly show a reduction of blood pressure.

Researches systematically reviewed the medical literature and performed a meta-analysis of twenty trials involving 732 participants.Four electronic databases were systematically searched for the period before May 2016 with language restriction of English and Japanese. The review considered all published, randomized, controlled trials, cohort studies, and comparative studies that evaluated the effects of the forest environment on changes in systolic blood pressure.Systolic blood pressure of the forest environment was significantly lower than that of the non-forest environment. Additionally, diastolic blood pressure of the forest environment was significantly lower than that of the non-forest environment.

Inflammation is our body’s response to injury and pathogens and in acute and chronic cases have been shown to lead to heart disease, diabetes, lung issues, bone health, depression, cancer, anger disorders and aggressive behavior.Nature is here to help.

Amongst others, contributing factors to the development of chronic inflammation are excess weight, lack of exercise, stress and air pollution.Getting out into nature and walking can help remedy all of these factors.

Living and spending time amongst the trees can dramatically improve the quality of the air.Trees and plants contribute to the air by releasing terpene compounds or phytoncides into the environment and these compounds have been shown to help relieve and prevent inflammation.Most studied of these natural chemicals is α-pinene which is found in the oils of coniferous trees, most notably pine.Trees and forests also filter the air of pollutant particulates andprovide shade thus reducing the temperature and cases of respiratory distress.

With Forest Bathing, you put yourself in an optimal environment and state of mind for healing the body and soothing the mind. Learn to forest bathe and here’s to your good health.

The Studies:

At the study by the Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Geriatrics & Geriatrics Institute of Zhejiang Province, twenty-four elderly patients with essential hypertension were randomly divided into two groups of 12. One group was sent to a broad-leaved evergreen forest to experience a 7-day/7-night trip, and the other was sent to a city area in Hangzhou for control.The baselines of the indicators of inflammation of the subjects were not significantly different. After the 7 days, little alteration in the detected indicators in the city group was observed while the group exposed to the forest environment showed a significant reduction in blood pressure in comparison to that of the city group.The resultsprovided direct evidence that forest bathing has therapeutic effects on human hypertension and induces inhibition of the renin-angiotensin system and inflammation, and thus inspiring its preventive efficacy against cardiovascular disorders. , Zhejiang Hospital, Hangzhou 310013, Zhejiang Province, PR China.

At the Zhejiang Hospital & Zhejiang Provincial Key Lab of Geriatrics in China, twenty healthy male university students participated as subjects and were randomly divided into two groups of 10. One group was sent on a two-night trip to a broad-leaved evergreen forest, and the other was sent to a city area. Subjects exposed to the forest environment showed reduced oxidative stress and pro-inflammatory level.

A study from Lancaster University, in the U.K quantified how well trees act as air purifiers against particulate matter from exhaust. The first measured the pollutants evident in residential homes in Lancaster and then placed a screen of 30 young silver birch trees in wooden planters in front of four of the houses, including one of the control houses, for 13 days. Results from from all eight houses showed that ones with the tree screens had 52 to 65% lower concentrations of metallic particles. The silver birches trapped the metallic particles before they entered the homes

Exercise is one of the best activities and detergents of obesity amongst children and adults. What is being discovered is that green exercise and play is even better for us.

Researches are showing that time spent outdoors either playing, walking or recreating can lead to better health as opposed to the same activities done inside. There are a number of possible explanations as to why.The environmental factors such as the high count of negative ions in the air we breath and the wind, temperature and terrain resistance we can only experience outside.

People feel better exercising in nature which makes for amore enjoyable experience and one that is more likely to be repeated.As opposed to working out in a gym with other people and mirrors around them, in nature people can feel less judged and have better self-esteem exercising.

With children, free and open play in nature brings on feelings of freedom, creativity, and curiosity.Anyone who’s ever witnessed a class of children bursting outdoors for recess into a school yard filled with grass and trees knows that they love the outdoors.Having easy access to close-by green spaces for children to play in and experience is directly related to lower body mass index (BMI).

If you’re having a hard time getting out to take a walk in nature, don’t let “nocebo” effect get you.Opposite of the placebo effect, nocebo is when you have a negative experience because of a pre-supposed negative forecast of the event.Think of the positive aspects of nature that you’ll experience to help you get outdoors to start moving your body.

The Studies:

At the University of Washington, Indiana University-Purdue University and Indiana University School of Medicine researchesfollowed over two years, more than 3800 children, predominantly African-American and poor, aged 3-16.They used data from satellite imaging to measure vegetation coverage and found that higher ‘greenness’ was strongly associated with lower body mass index (BMI) changes in those children.

In a landmark 1980 study, U.S. psychologists James Pennebaker and Jean Lightner compared the performance of novice joggers on two 1,800-metre trails: One through a forested area and the other through a non-forested area. The study’s adult subjects were told to jog at their own pace and they had to complete both courses with a 10 day period. What they discovered was that the woods running participants’ completion times were much faster and they experience more enjoyment and satisfaction and less psychological stress and pain.

In a 2011 study, University of Texas researchers evaluated the performances of 128 track and field athletes at four venues during a spring competition season. Each venue had been rated on a “greenness” scale.Their result: Performances were best in the areas with the most greenness.

Myopia or nearsightedness has become increasingly more common in the recent years.Although possibly attributed at to a genetic predisposition, many eye doctors feel the development of myopia has something to do with eye fatigue from computer use and other extended near vision tasks.

Most at risk of this development of vision are children and adolescents.As kids spend more of their waking hours in front of screens and mobile devices, their eyes try to adapt to the changes brought on by this modern technology.A correlation of increased screen time and myopia is hard to ignore but may be harder to prove.But more and more, studies are showing with stark results that the more children spend in the outdoors, the less likely they will develop the impairment of nearsightedness.One University of Cambridge study even developed a formula: There is a 2% reduced odds of myopia per additional hour of time spent outdoors per week.

Encourage outdoor play as much as possible with your children and as little screen time as possible as they grow their vision during their formative years.

The Studies:

An Australian study that followed one thousand seven hundred sixty-five 6-year-olds (year 1) and 2367 12-year-olds (year 7) in the Sydney Myopia Study from 2003 to 2005. Their results were that more time spent outdoors (rather than playing sports indoors) was associated with a lower prevalence of myopia among 12-year-olds.

Researchers in Taiwan studied two nearby schools where myopia was equally common amongst 7-11 year olds. For one year, the interventions consisted of performing a recess outside the classroom (ROC) program that encouraged children to go outside for outdoor activities during recess. The control school did not have any special programs during recess. After 1 year, new onset of myopia was significantly lower in the ROC group (8.41%) than in the control group (17.65%)

There are more than 100 types of cancer, A complex group of diseases with many possible causes.But there is encouraging news that through exposure to nature and through practices such as Forest Bathing could help combat the onset of many forms of cancer.

Being in nature invites having a healthy and active lifestyle with a strong immune system. Specifically, our absorption of the sun’s Vitamin D may actually have protective effects against cancer, Epidemiologic studies are suggesting.

One promising area of research suggests that spending time in nature through forest bathing may increase our NK cell count which is essential to fighting off virally infected cells.With a higher count of Natural killer cells (NK cells), which are a type of white blood cell, our immune system operates at its optimal capacity.More research is surely going to be dedicated to this intriguing link between our immune functions and the supportive health effects of nature.

To get your daily dose of Vitamin D to support your immune function, consider taking a walk in the forest and exposing your arms and legs to the sun for 10-15 minutes.But don’t overexpose yourself.Too much sun can also be damaging to your skin and health.

The Studies:

At the Department of Hygiene and Public Health, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, ’Twelve healthy male subjects, age 37-55 years, were selected with informed consent from three large companies in Tokyo, Japan. The subjects experienced a three-day/two-night trip in three different forest fields. On the first day, subjects walked for two hours in the afternoon in a forest field; and on the second day, they walked for two hours in the morning and afternoon, respectively, in two different forest fields. Blood was sampled on the second and third days, and NK activity; proportions of NK, T cells, granulysin, perforin, and granzymes A/B-expressing cells in PBL were measured. Similar measurements were made before the trip on a normal working day as the control. Almost all of the subjects (11/12) showed higher NK activity after the trip (about 50 percent increased) compared with before. There are significant differences both before and after the trip and between days 1 and 2 in NK activity. The forest bathing trip also significantly increased the numbers of NK, perforin, granulysin, and granzymes A/B-expressing cells. Taken together, these findings indicate that a forest bathing trip can increase NK activity, and that this effect at least partially mediated by increasing the number of NK cells and by the induction of intracellular anti-cancer proteins.’

So many aspects of our longevity has to do with stress.Being in Nature helps reduce stress and research has shown that even living close to greenspaces can lower mortality rates amongst the population.

Being in and around nature is not a guarantee to living a longer life but there is a strong correlation that it just may help.Whether it’s the pure air, the color green itself, the pleasing patterns of nature, the absence of daily stress triggers or the open invitation to exercise and explore,Nature holds a key to a healthy longer life.

Frequently visit the park for a walk or the neighborhood forest for a sitting and simply spend time there.

The Studies:

Researchers from Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital examined more than 108,000 women enrolled in the Nurse’s Health Study, a nationwide investigation into risk factors for major chronic diseases in women, from 2000 to 2008.They compared risk of death with the amount of vegetation near the women’s homes and found that women living in the greenest areas had a 12% lower death rate than women living in the least green areas. The levels of vegetation were determined using satellite imagery from different seasons and years.

By having access to nature, even simply a view through a window can help with your body’s healing capabilities.

Hospitals are increasingly understanding nature and nature imagery can only improve their patients’ experience and actually improve their recovery time. Through visitor gardens, photographs of nature and rooms with views of trees, patients can reduce their levels of pain and stress and concurrently boost their immune system in ways that allow their own body and other treatments to help heal.Nature is less demanding of our directed attention and gently invites us to engage our involuntary attention which requires little mental energy expenditure.When we are less taxed mentally we can have more of an opportunity to heal.

If you are recovering from a surgery or illness, try to experience nature in its many forms as much as your willing to possibly help with your healing.

The Studies:

In a landmark study by Roger S. Ulrich in 1984, the researcher looked at the existing records of patients who had undergone gallbladder surgery and their in hospital recovery records between 1972-1981.Some patients either had an unobstructed view of small stand of trees or a brown brick wall when lying in bed. Other than window views, the rooms were nearly identical in size, arrangement of beds, furniture and other major physical characteristics.

What he found was that patients with a view of trees were hospitalized almost a day shorter than patients who had a view of the brick wall. Brick wall-view patients had more negative nurses notes such as “upset and crying” or “needs much encouragement” than tree-view patients.Also, patients with nature window views received fewer analgesic doses 2-5 days after surgery. The tree-view patients more frequently received weaker pain medications like aspirin or acetaminophen while brick wall-view patients who needed stronger pain medications such as narcotics.

Medical Disclaimer

The contents of this website are for informational purposes only and are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

Duncan Murdoch

NATURE & FOREST THERAPY GUIDE
Duncan is a Certified Nature & Forest Therapy guide living and working in Vermont. As an interdisciplinary thinker, Duncan has accrued his experience and knowledge from improvisational and film Meisner based acting, teaching, producing original theater, painting & sculpting, horticulture, land management and music. Duncan grew up on the shores of Lake Champlain in rural Vermont where his deep connection to Nature was formed. After receiving his Nature & Forest Therapy Guide Certification from ANFT in 2015, he began his official practice in New York City guiding the first Forest Bathing groups in Central Park. He worked as a Horticulturalist for the NYC parks Department and co-created the first shinrin-yoku forested walking trail on Randall’s Island. He moved back to Vermont in 2015 and began his work with the Intervale Center growing and planting native trees and stewarding the land. He now serves on the South Burlington Natural Resource Committee and is a board member of the South Burlington Land Trust. He is part of the UVM Integrative Health Practitioner Network and frequently conducts Forest Therapy walks throughout the beautiful state with his organization, Nature Connection Guide.

Nature Connection Guide

The Everyday Guide to deepening our connection and relationship with Nature for our health and the planet's prosperity.